Overview

Sometimes customers will leave the cart intentionally or by accident and return later. This feature allows merchants to set the length of time that the shopping cart session cookie will "hold" an item or items if and when a customer abandons the cart, either by navigating away or leaving the cart in an inactive state.

This can be an important setting for those that have Track Inventory turned on at the item level. Once an item or items are "allocated to shopping carts", those items are subtracted from the total available inventory. Too high of setting here could cause your inventory to drop to zero even though you have physical inventory on hand subsequently causing "item out of stock" error for the customer.

To set the Abandon Interval, navigate to:

Configuration → Checkout → Abandon Interval

UltraCart Documentation > Abandon Interval > DEMO DOCS Abandon Interval Checkout Configuration.png

Select the time you want the item(s) retained in the cart via the drop down menu. The default is 1 hour. Click the "Save" button when finished.

The abandon interval will be a larger value if you are utilizing the return email feature. Return email allows you to send a customer an email with a coupon after a certain amount of inactivity. The coupon is valid up until the abandon interval is exceeded.

Helpful Notes

The abandon interval is the same field for both the Abandon Interval and Return Email screen. If you change it on one screen, it will update on the other.
The abandon interval is calculated from cart inactivity. It is not affected by the Return Email duration. For example, if you have a Return Email duration of 3 hours, and an Abandon Interval of 6 hours, then the cart is considered abandoned after 6 hours, not 9.
Sending a Return Email does not reset the inactivity counter. Only customer interaction with their cart resets the inactivity timer.

Operations → Marketing → Email → Return Email

What can you do with Abandoned Carts and the Return Emails?

The Auto Responder may be used to create sophisticated email marketing campaigns off either the Abandon Cart or Return Email triggers.
Export the Abandoned Carts for use in third party marketing.

Operations → Reporting → Abandon Lead Report

Use the Return Emails screens to create simple return emails to offer coupons to customers with inactivity.